The Myth of the Normal Curve
eBook - PDF

The Myth of the Normal Curve

  1. 262 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Myth of the Normal Curve

About this book

It is generally taken for granted that human behavior distributes along the lines of a bell-shaped, normal curve. This idea underpins much educational theory, research, and practice. There is, however, a considerable body of research demonstrating that the normal curve grossly misrepresents the human experience. Yet the acceptance of the normal curve continues to be used to pathologize children and adults with disabilities by positioning them as abnormal. Collectively, the contributors to this volume critique the ideology of the normal curve. Some explicitly challenge the assumptions that underpin the normal curve. Others indirectly critique notions of normality by examining the impact of normal curve thinking on educational policies and practices. Many contributors go beyond critiquing the normal curve to propose alternative ways to imagine human differences. All contributors agree that the hegemony of the normal curve has had a devastating effect on those presumed to live on the boundaries of normal.

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Yes, you can access The Myth of the Normal Curve by Alex Gurn, Curt Dudley-Marling in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Education & Education General. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. CONTENTS
  2. 1 Introduction: Living on the Boundaries of Normal - Curt Dudley-Marling & Alex Gurn 1
  3. 2 Troubling the Foundations of Special Education: Examining the Myth of the Normal Curve - Curt Dudley-Marling & Alex Gurn 9
  4. 3 Educational Researchers and the Making of Normal People - Deborah Gallagher 25
  5. 4 Decentralizations and Redistributions: A Complex Reading of Normality - Brent Davis & Dennis Sumara 39
  6. 5 Situating Labeling within an Ideological Framework - Donaldo Macedo & Teresa Sordé Martí 53
  7. 6 Evolutionary Anxiety, Monstrosity, and the Birth of Normality - Steven A. Gelb 71
  8. 7 “Requires Medication to Progress Academically”: The Discursive Pathways of ADHD - Rebecca Rogers & Michael Mancini 87
  9. 8 Assessment and the Policing of the Norm - Eileen W. Ball & Beth Harry 105
  10. 9 Miner’s Canaries and Boiling Frogs: Fiction and Facts about Normalcy in Educational and Reading Assessment - Arlette Ingram Willis 123
  11. 10 A Dialogue We’ve Yet to Have: Race and Disability Studies - Beth Ferri 139
  12. 11 Labeling and Treating Linguistic Minority Students with Disabilities as Deficient and Outside the Normal Curve: A Pedagogy of Exclusion - Felicity A. Crawford & Lilia I. Bartolomé 151
  13. 12 Sex Education and Young Adults with Intellectual Disabilities: Crisis Response, Sexual Diversity, and Pleasure - Michael Gill 171
  14. 13 The Sirens of Normative Mythology: Mother Narratives of Engagement and Resistance - Jan Valle & Susan Gabel 187
  15. 14 Living on the Edge of the Normal Curve: “It’s Like a Smack in the Head” - Bernadette Macartney 205
  16. 15 Practitioner Research as Resistance to the “Normal Curve” - Gerald Campano & Rob Simon 221
  17. 16 Conclusion: Re/visioning the Ideological Imagination in (Special) Education - Alex Gurn 241
  18. List of Contributors 257
  19. Index 259